


What Almost Was

by Fair_Feather_Friend



Series: Once a King [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Blow Jobs, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fair_Feather_Friend/pseuds/Fair_Feather_Friend
Summary: Three moments, from the books, when Quentin and Eliot might have ended up together.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: Once a King [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687207
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	What Almost Was

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the series, but the scenarios are based on three events from the first book.

They claim at the moment of death your entire life flashes before your eyes. For Quentin it was lifetimes. That tangled mess of time loops and alternate universes and so many different possibilities.

There were lifetimes when Quentin and Eliot ended up together. Ones where they had a messy on off relationship, and others where they just worked. Their friendship was the constant, that solid bond between them. Their love unquestionable. The physical, well for two physical kids not always. But when it was, it was good, and it changed everything.

One of the great tragedies was that Eliot+Quentin was rarely a formula that resulted in the defeat of the beast. They'd find happiness only for time to be rewound yet again and another permutation forced to play out.

Victory was always pain.

But still Quentin could see what almost was.

A lazy summer day when Quentin first arrived at Brakebills and there was just Quentin and Eliot and a world full of magic and possibility. They'd set their sights upon boating on the river although neither knew anything about how to do so, but they'd somehow muddled along and embarked on their first adventure together. Overcome with the perfection of the day they'd kissed. And later they'd done so much more. They'd drifted together and apart and then together again as the years had gone by. And they worked.

* * *

An afternoon in his first year at Brakebills, when Quentin had sought out his favourite spot by the telescope to read. Eliot, on his knees before another boy, who berated and spat on him. Quentin barged in to defend his friend, a spell thrown to push the student back, acting without thinking, before realising it was a sex thing. He'd known and not cared that Eliot was gay, but to be suddenly confronted with it, with the turgid member of a student, and Eliot's look of lust. 

Quentin had burned with embarrassment and then with jealousy. Why hadn't Eliot wanted him? He'd never have treated Eliot so poorly. Would he have been able to go through with it? Sex with a man. He'd never fantasised about... well teenage hormones, intrusive thoughts, everyone had inappropriate crushes sometimes... it didn't mean he was gay. Bi. 

Quentin found himself on his knees, Eliot's hands tangled in his hair, learning an act of worship that was so much easier than he'd ever imagined. And for some unimaginable reason Eliot did not tire of him as he did any of the others. Things got messy when Quentin hooked up with Alice, loved Alice, but they managed to make things work. Mostly.

* * *

The beast was defeated but at such a cost. Alice had died, sacrificing herself. Penny had lost his hands. And Quentin had spent six months unconscious with no hope of ever waking up. But when he did Eliot was there, waiting for him, having refused to leave even when the others had given up. It was in picking up the broken pieces of all that they had lost that they realised the depths of their love.

* * *

And others... so many others... and Quentin, this Quentin could see and remember them all.


End file.
